Hanoi (VNA) – Ten winners of the OutstandingVietnamese Young Faces Award 2018, an annual national award to honour young people at home and abroad who haveexcelled in various categories, have been announced.

In the culture-arts category, Miss VietnamH’hen Nie was selected as this year’s winner. H’hen Nie was born in 1992 into afarming family in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak. She won the MissUniverse Vietnam pageant in 2017 and finished in the top five at the global MissUniverse 2018 competition held in Thailand.

H’hen Nie has actively engaged in charitableactivities in all regions across the country, especially with programmes tosupport people living with HIV-AIDS, while inspiring students, especially girls,and assisting poor families. Along with helping raise public awareness of HIV,H’hen Nie has worked hard for gender equality and wider access to education forall.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Duc Thanh and Vong Binh Long,both born in 1984, have become the country’s outstanding faces in scientificresearch and innovation.

Thanh has also been previously honoured with theUS NIH Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators, and the SMEOutstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award.

Long is a successful researcher in the area ofnanotechnology for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancers. Hisresearch in the field has been published in multiple noteworthy internationalacademic journals, including ‘Gastroenterology’ under the American GastroenterologicalAssociation and ‘Biomaterials’.

The young face recognised in the category ofstudy is Nguyen Phuong Thao, aged 19. Thao achieved respectable academicsuccess by winning a gold medal at the International Biology Olympiad 2018, asilver medal of the International Biology Olympiad 2017, and a goldmedal of the Natural Science Olympiad in the 2015-2016 academic year.

She was also awarded a third-class Labour Orderby the State President, and many certificates of merit from various ministriesand agencies.

The award for the outstanding Vietnamese youthin the startup industry was Van Dinh Hong Vu, 36, Master of BusinessAdministration and Education at Stanford University. In March 2018, the Englishpronunciation application ELSA Speak, which she developed alongside otherpartners, successfully pitched 3.2 million USD. After 24 hours of its firstdebut, the app attracted 30,000 downloads, which has so far topped 700,000 andbeen available in over 90 countries and territories globally. It is also amongthe top 5 best artificial intelligence apps.

Tran Van Thuyet, 29, was recognised for hisachievements in labour and production. He was the head of a group in charge ofdesigning and developing core charging modules, contributing to refining andsuccessfully launching the vOCS3.0 online charging system in Vietnam. ThevOCS2.0 and vOCS3.0 are now available in seven markets invested by themilitary-run telecom provider Viettel, meeting the demands of its 140 millionsubscribers.

Footballer Nguyen Quang Hai was named as the exceptionalfigure in the sports sector. Hai won the Vietnam Golden Ball award last year, aswell as the Bronze Ball title in 2017.

Last year, Vietnam finished second at the AsianFootball Confederation (AFC) U23 Championships, and Hai contributed five out ofthe team’s eight goals. In addition, Vietnam’s Olympic team made history byqualifying for the semi-finals of the men’s football at the Asian Games.

The 21-year-old footballer was also honouredthe Most Valuable Player of the 2018 ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) SuzukiCup, where Vietnam was crowned champion. He also received second- and third-classLabour Orders during the year.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Thuan, born in 1991, washonoured in national defence. He ensured safety standards in flight training andusage on the DHC-6 seaplane.

Thuan completed his training ahead of scheduleand received recognition as a main pilot for all categories. He also hadfulfilled his duties of carrying out reconnaissance flights out at sea.

Major Le Trong Hieu, born in 1983, has beenhonoured with the Vietnamese outstanding youth face award for security andorder in 2018.

He was awarded a third-class feat of arms medal and a certificate of merit bythe Ministry of Public Security for his achievements in effectivelyimplementing professional and social evil prevention, contributing to promotingthe “All people protect national security” movement. In 2018, Hieu directly joined campaigns to razefive black credit groups, as well as six groups of theft and consumptionof stolen things; investigated and discovered 15 cases of theft; and arrested30 suspects, including 21 wanted people.

Meanwhile, Le Dinh Hieu won the title of theVietnamese outstanding youth in social activities. The 31-year-old made it ontothe list of the 30 brightest stars underthe age of 30 in different fields of Vietnam in 2016 by Forbes. Hieu is the founder of the G.A.PInstitute and the Hear.US.Now project of teaching English and computing skillsto deaf people. The G.A.P Institute was selected by the UNESCO Centre ForCulture, Education, and Training Organisation to be a strategic partnerfor the Talent Generation project, which helped connect 10,000 students andcreate jobs for about 1,000 students from universities nationwide.

The Vietnam Outstanding Young FacesAward is a highly esteemed event from the Ho Chi Minh Communist YouthCentral Committee, aiming to honour outstanding youths under 35 across the nationwho are studying, working in scientific research at home and abroad, and thosehaving great achievements of national construction and defence.

The award is hoped to promote emulation movements for learning, training,scientific research, and creative activities among youths and attract publicattention to educating and training young people.

This year, up to 137 youths, including 38 young women and nineindividuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, were nominated for the award.

The commendation ceremony of the Vietnamese outstandingyoung faces in 2018 will take place at the Vietnam Televisionon March 19.–VNA